The ability to deliver pharmaceuticals or other therapeutics through skin (transdermal) or other organ layers can provide many advantages over oral or parenteral delivery techniques. In particular, transdermal delivery can provide a safe, convenient and noninvasive alternative to traditional drug administration systems, conveniently avoiding the major problems associated with oral delivery (e.g. variable rates of absorption and metabolism, gastrointestinal irritation and/or bitter or unpleasant drug tastes) or parenteral delivery (e.g. needle pain, the risk of introducing infection to treated individuals, the risk of contamination or infection of health care workers caused by accidental needle-sticks and the disposal of used needles). In addition, transdermal delivery can afford a high degree of control over blood concentrations of administered pharmaceuticals.
Traditional needleless syringes are known that deliver therapeutic particles entrained in a supersonic gas flow. Such traditional needleless syringes can be used for transdermal delivery of powdered drug compounds and compositions, for delivery of genetic material into living cells (e.g. gene therapy), and for the delivery of biopharmaceuticals to skin, eye, muscle, blood or lymph. Traditional needleless syringes can also be used in conjunction with surgery to deliver drugs and biologics to organ surfaces, solid tumors, and/or to surgical cavities (e.g. tumor beds or cavities after tumor resection). In theory, practically any therapeutic agent that can be prepared in a substantially solid, particulate form can be safely and easily delivered using such devices.
However, traditional needleless syringes often deliver therapeutic particles at a large range of velocities with potentially non-uniform spatial distribution across a target treatment surface. Differences in particle velocity may make it difficult to deliver high-potency powdered drugs, vaccines, etc. to specific target layers underneath the target treatment surface. Furthermore, such non-uniform spatial distribution may cause further complications with the efficacy of such therapeutics after delivery. In addition, flow considerations inside traditional needleless syringes may limit the maximum treatment surface area over which the therapeutic particles may be spread, thereby limiting the maximum particle payload size.
Additionally, traditional needleless syringes often produce a loud sound when actuated, which can scare patients such as small children, thereby defeating the purpose of choosing a needleless syringe over a needled-syringe. Therefore, a device, system, and/or method is needed for quietly and uniformly delivering particulate therapeutics through a patient's skin or other organ layer over a larger target treatment surface. By uniformly delivering such particulates over a larger treatment surface, therapeutic payloads with larger particulate volumes can be delivered.